Re:The hidden ways that architecture affects the way you feel
by chrismealy on Friday June 09, 2017 @07:37PM
(#14525363)
I'm with you. I've thought a lot about how technology could be used to increase the amount of detail in architecture (rather than decrease it), but I'm not a designer, and my daydreams never go anywhere (I think you just can't beat old brownstones and 17th century Dutch houses. They're not even that ornate, but the quality of materials were high). New construction in my city looks like cardboard boxes taped together, and that's for a $1,000,000 house.
Re:The hidden ways that architecture affects the way you feel
by fibbery on Friday June 09, 2017 @03:41PM
(#14523870)
Maybe it's the intensive labor that made them valuable in the first place, as signifiers of wealth. Now that intricate details can be mass produced inexpensively, minimalism is in vogue.
I also feel that way about residential architecture, where intricate façades seem to have faded away in newer homes. Even grotesque McMansions feel comparatively tame in comparison to say, an Edwardian or Brownstone style home.
Pointing cost as a reason made sense back then, but now feels counterintuitive, as we have so many more materials and ways to mass produce intricate details today that we did back then - 3D printing, CNC, etc. - I don't see why a Victorian style neighborhood couldn't be built today without the intensive labor costs it used to take to make those details that make those homes so beautiful.